Monday, February 15, 2016

Stay on Top of Credit Scores and Improve Them

You'vesaved up enough money for a down payment on a new housebutyou have no idea what yourcreditscore is or whether you have any dings on your credit report. Whenever you start saving up for a new house you should start repairing your credit at thesametime. It may take you that long to get your credit in order, so why not kill two birds with one stone.Just so you know repairingyourcredit is a lot like losing weight.It takes time and there is no quick fix. Beware

ofanyone that offers you a surefire way to fix your credit because most likely it will turn out to be asure fireway to lose some money and backfire especially if they promise you a fast solution. The most sensible advice for repairing your credit is to manage it responsibly over time. Your credit history needs to be in the forefront in repairing your credit as this will affect your credit score as much or more than anything else. Thesecreditrepair tips will help to improve your credit score.

A FICO score is a credit score developed by FICO, a company that specializes in what’s known as “predictive analytics". This analysismeans thatthey take information and analyze it to predict what’s likely to happen in a given situation.In the case of credit scores, FICO takes credit information and uses it to create scores that help lenders predict behavior. Thisbehaviorwillshowhow likely someone is to pay their bills on time (or not), or whether they are able to handle a larger credit line. Scores developed by FICO can also be used to forecast the accountsthat are most likely to end up included inabankruptcy, or which ones are likely to be most profitable.

Check your FICOscoreperiodically, if youhaven'talready requested your free copy of yourcreditreport do it now and check it for errors. The credit report will have all the data that is used to calculate yourcreditscore and it may contain blatant errors. Any errors on yourcreditreport should be disputed with the credit reporting agencies and this must be done inwriting most of the time and will take some time although the blatant errors can be done online.

The optimumway to get those FICO scores up is to set up payment reminders because making your credit payments on time is one of the biggest factors that affect yourcredit scores. There are

tons of payment reminder apps all over the internet. Look at the recommendations and try a few until yousettlewith the onethatis best suited for your needs.Somebanks offer payment reminders along with their online payment portals that will send youtextmessages or email with reminders about impending paymentdeadlines. There are automatic payment programs through your bank or credit card company or even some loan providers. Thepaymentswould be automatically debited from your bank account. Onrevolvingcredit this type of paymentdoes not account for payments that will let you manage your account.

Anothergood way to get your FICO scores up is to reduce theamountof debt that you owe. Reducing the amount you owe willBea far more satisfyingthan improving your creditscorebut it is far more difficult to accomplish. The best way to accomplish this is to stop using your credit cards. Utilize the credit report to determine your debt and the interest rate. Make sure your new payment plan pays more on the debt payments that have higher interest rates and pay as much over the minimum that your budget will permit. The other lower interest cards you want tosustainwith minimum payments but make sure they are all paid on time.

Lateor delinquent payments even if only a few days late andcollections accounts can havea very negative impact on your FICO scores. To increase your scoresthe longeryou keep paying on time on yourpastdue accounts, the sooner you can increase your FICO scores. The older the delinquencies the less impact on your credit because the most recent history has moreimpact. This creditbehavior will outweigh any derogatoriesbecauseitwill show that you're managing your credit well. When paying off a collection account, it will not removed from your creditreport and couldstayon your report for seven years. Make sure that when you dosatisfy a collection account try and get them to send a letter to the credit reportingagencystating that the debt was fully satisfied.

If in the long run you're havingtroublemakingendsmeet, you maywantto consultalegitimatecredit counselor. This should not hurt your scores and if you ask for help paying on time will eventually bring up your FICO scores. Here are some other suggestions:

Keep balances low on credit cards and other "revolving credit". …

Pay off debt rather than moving it around. ...

Don't close unused credit cards as a short-term strategyjust to increase your available credit.

Pay your bills on time.

High outstanding debt can affect a credit score.

Pay off debt rather than moving it around.

Don't close unused credit cards as a short-term strategy to raise your scores.

Re-establish your credit history if you have had problems.

Opening new accounts responsibly and paying them off on time will raise your credit score in the long term.

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About Me

An engineer by trade and learned my writing skills initially by doing email. Worked for the 2nd organization ever connected to the Internet (Arpanet) which at that time was Stanford Research Institute. And no it wasn't a prison or loony hospital. It later became SRI International. Worked at ARC (Augment Research Center) then run by Douglas Engelbart of many computer firsts of which turns out that 'The Mouse' is most notable. ARC was bought by Tymshare Inc, (Computer Time-Sharing company) lock, stock and barrel and I moved to Tymshare in Cupertino, CA. I moved around in the Bay Area and worked at several startups. NCD (first "thin client" on the internet with X-terminals). SurfWatch (first internet software that allowed users to block explicit content).
NuvoMedia and Softbook Press merged by Gemstar (first eBook Companies). Now I am a full fledged Artist and loving every minute with little or no pay.